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bakurapika · 6 years

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Rules: Answer 11 Questions and Make Up 11 of Your own

Tagged by @dogbearinggifts and @odd-cinderella (so I have 22 to answer... hoo........)

1. Name something that makes you as giddy as fireworks make Ernesto de la Cruz.

talkin bout the death positivity movement yeah boyyyyyyyyy

2. Do you have any pet peeve tropes (story beats or patterns you see that make you roll your eyes at best)? If so, what?

Oh yeah, but I’m better at pointing out specific instances--I don’t have a list off the top of my head. Miscommunication tropes are probably the worst offenders if they’re done poorly. (not always tho. @ryouverua does them great.)

3. Talent you don’t have but wish you did?

currently? PLAYING GUITAR GHGHGH. or even just having an ear for music.

4. If you had to get one set of song lyrics as a tattoo, what lyrics would you get?

off the top of my head, i’m thinking something from bon jovi’s everybody’s broken. because i’m a sap. otherwise, maybe a fandom song--hamilton or something wh oops

5. Your boss tells you to dress for the job you want. You take this literally and come to work dressed as a job that might not exist, but that you would love to have. What are you wearing?

Since I hate uniforms/dress codes, I’d probably just wear whatever I want, because my ideal job wouldn’t require any uniform hahah. Maybe a nice dress.

6. What is one food that you feel you SHOULD like, but that you don’t?

Spicy stuff.

7. Favorite villain?

Dr. Horrible? haha

8. You have been selected to teach a college-level course. This course can be on absolutely anything and you write your own curriculum. What are you teaching?

For what I’d feel qualified to blather on about? Probably an intro to literary analysis sort of thing. Or the history of coffee.

9. Least favorite hero?

Geez, I dunnooo. Maybe Kaiba. He’s an antihero but w/e

10. If you could cook one dish perfectly every time, what would it be?

I never cook! Maybe bread. Because my family has a matrilineal curse on it that none of us can ever make bread, and I’d like to break the chain.

11. Favorite Disney song of all time?

Ffffffffffffffffffffff I’m.................. going with “You’re Welcome”

1. What is your advice for self-confidence?

Remember that people with much fewer qualifications than you have almost definitely tried what you’re doing and succeeded. Also, the stakes are probably much lower than you think they are. Partial credit is better than no credit.

2. What music do you listen to when you write?

I have to have absolute silence when I write. Music is too distracting!

3. What other fandoms do you enjoy?

Over the Garden Wall is my other big one.

4. How would you save someone from self-harm?

You can’t usually “save” someone from something like that. (I mean, in my old job I was trained on restraint techniques for this reason, but besides that...) You have to be able to take a step back, encourage and help them and try to keep them as save as possible, give them resources if they’re willing to listen, and let them make their own choices. It’s hard and it doesn’t feel right but you can’t force someone to take care of themselves either. Sometimes you need to be able to call someone professional if they need help.

5. Do you have any pets?

I have a lovely cat named Bastet!

6. What is your Life’s Theme Song?

Ah heck all these song questions. I really don’t know! I’m sorry!

7. Texting or talking on the phone?

Texting for exchanging info. Talking for chatting, bc I’m terrible at typing on a touchscreen keyboard.

8. What attracted you to your fandom?

I watched it and couldn’t stop thinking about it ever.

9. Do you believe in love at first sight?

yes im certain that it happens all the time

Attraction at first sight, yes!

10. List your Top 5 favorite songs

aaaaaaaa

idek

here’s 5 that i like tho:

barricade

cucurrucucú paloma

hey ho (on the devil’s back)

sincerely, me

crazy words crazy tunes

Post your social medias

twitter

deviantart

ao3

youtube

art instagram

questions:

1. What always can make you smile? 2. What can always make you cry? 3. Least favourite daily/weekly task you have to do? 4. What’s your preferred form of artistic expression? 5. Have you had any near-death experiences? 6. What story/artistic element will always make you like a piece no matter what else is in it? 7. What’s your fav character “type”? 8. Who’s your favourite historical figure? 9. Weird habit you have? 10. Can you do any impressions? 11. First online fandom?

I tag @down2thebone @someone-online @veterki @cartoonwarrior210 @gnome-aesthetic @tundrainafrica @ryouverua @pengychan (if you guys wanna do it!)

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yuanstuff · 4 years

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Chaotic Interfaces @ Babycastles

The Babycastles gallery is only open on Saturdays from 12 PM -6 PM and Mondays from 6 PM -12 AM. Already very chaotic of them. On Friday night, I texted one of my friends:

wanna go to babycastles tmrw? theyre a video game gallery and have an exhibit rn called chaotic interfaces

I have never been more intrigued by the name of a gallery in my life omg. is it expensive bc im poor

my ta from last semester cofounded it and theyre strongly anti establishment and read a lot of communist theory so i think its free

AMAZING

We met in front of Babycastles at around 3, or as in front of it as we could, considering it was in the basement of an apartment building. It took us a minute to figure out how to ring the basement, but we eventually got in. We were greeted by a volunteer who had the misfortune of having to set up all the pieces and make sure they worked. He offered to help if weren’t sure how to play any of the games, but admitted that he wasn’t too sure how some of them worked either. Not all of them came with clear instructions, and they were meant to be chaotic, after all.

We didn’t get to play a few games, sadly, because they were out of order. It gave me IMA show flashbacks. Of the ones we did play, though, I have some opinions. We started from the back and worked our way back to the entrance, so the first game we played was this:

I forgot to get a picture of the staging, which is unfortunate because even though they were mostly just props, they added a lot to the feel of the game. There was a little table with an ashtray filled with cigarettes, an old radio, and the other trappings of an old-fashioned detective. You controlled this game with only your voice, so you had to speak into a microphone. The voice recognition was pretty good, and it caught what we were saying even if we weren’t speaking super clearly. The objective of the game was to find a 4-letter code hidden in a photo. It took us a few rounds before we were able to figure out the best strategy to win, which was to tell it to “enhance” before moving around or resizing the picture. After that, it was pretty easy. I quite liked this game – the visuals were appealing, and it made me feel pretty smart each time I found the code. The fact that it eliminated physical interaction was also interesting. It’s kind of comparable to the Nintendo DS microphone that some games made you speak or blow into. It was impressive on a technical level, but I think the fact that it relied on just voice recognition meant that it was pretty restricted in terms of play. It’s fun until you get the gist of it and rounds start to last about half a minute. I feel like this could be taken a step further if it were made into something like “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”, where it’s multiplayer and everyone has a little bit of information that they need to communicate to each other in order to win the game.

The next game we played was a bit like QWOP, but much much worse and also very good, and the volunteer said that the file for it was just called “butt game”:

youtube

You had to sit on a big box that you could kind of rock around on, and that’s how you controlled the torso-less body onscreen. It was agonizing, and I was very bad at it. Neither of us got past 2 meters. Still, we kept coming back to it. It was fun! Even if we kept failing, which was kind of frustrating but still fun, probably because of the visual of a butt and legs rolling around on screen after you fell. It had to be recalibrated at some point, so I caught a glimpse of a Wii Fitness Board at the bottom. Revolutionary. I thought they’d used a tilt sensor or a 6DOF or something, but it was a Wii Fitness Board, and it just made it so much better. It was like I was witnessing a rebirth since it’s essentially a technological relic at this point that I thought no one really thought about anymore. But here it was, and someone had made a game with it. You could argue that the play was even more restricted than the last game, so why did I seem to like this one more? Part of it might have been the weird visuals, and the Wii Fit Board definitely captured my attention. But it was mostly just fun in how ridiculous it was. It’s great to watch your friends shake around furiously on a big box, and we did come up with a few different ways of playing it: rocking side to side or back and forth, or getting up and holding the sides of the box instead. None of them worked super well. I assume you can “win” the game by reaching 100 meters or something, but there was something freeing about playing a game that’s almost impossible to win.

I wasn’t able to get a good photo in the dark, but this game was pretty great too:

This one had a name: “tussletron 2038″. The controller is just an old PC trackpad duct-taped to the back of a controller that had been ripped apart. The game is played in Chrome between two people. It is an abomination. And it was great! You won by clicking the other player’s icon until their HP hit 0. Why is it so much fun to fight over a cursor with someone else? Since it was in Chrome, you could also resize the screen/images so you could get to the other person quicker or keep the other player away from you. I’m not sure if this was an intended part of the gameplay or something that was emergent, but it added a layer of strategy? to a game that was just about clicking?? and fighting over a cursor??? the whole thing was strangely mesmerizing and strategic. Something my friend and I both ended up doing to thwart the other person’s attempts to click was to move the cursor around erratically so they couldn’t keep track of their own movements until we could steal it back. Video game developers keep trying to make games more and more complex, but humans just like to click things and mess around. This game is really low-fidelity and looks kind of dumb, but it’s a good demonstration of the engineering fallacy in games, the idea that once we’ve reached the height of technology, games will be perfect and high art.

Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibit. While I wish we could have gotten to play more of the games, I had fun with the ones we did play, and I got to experience some unexpected forms of alternative controllers and physical computing that reminded me of the importance of elegance in creative endeavors. I guess it’s oxymoronic to describe an exhibition called “chaotic interfaces” as “elegant”, but I think that for the most part it’s the aesthetic that’s chaotic. At their core, a lot of the games relied on simple controls that led to interesting experiences. In my own projects, I tend to be pretty extra and put a lot of “stuff” into it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, it does mean I have trouble conveying messages with subtlety. I want to work on taking some of that fluff out and putting my efforts towards figuring out what would make an interaction really meaningful instead.

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couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name · 7 years

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okay I’m STILL not done the book yet because #life(tm) but some follow up reactions

The entire scene where Calypso and Apollo were trying to escape on the slow kiddy train at the Zoo had me in stitches holy shit

Apollo frantically hitting the gas and Calypso is just leisurely walking next to it while glaring at him??? And the guards? omfg I was dying

Meg’s entrance was dramatic and awesome good for her

Why the fuck is this 12 year old so good at sword fighting she can keep up with one of the deadliest swordfighters of the ancient world(tm)

When Lit threatened Leo and Calypso essentially morphed into the knife emoji on spot. A plus.

I mean I’m just saying: I feel like a pregnant griffin isn’t more important than helping a tortured seven year old girl. But I still love Britomartis so I guess it’s whatever

I love how Lit was going on like he has a score to settle with Leo because ‘he and his friends’ fucked him up in Oklahoma but like....Leo didn’t contribute to that at all like Jason literally did everything during that fight??? That was kinda like important to Jason’s development and shit??? Leo and Piper were golden statues and Hedge was outside eating grass??? Shouldn’t Lit’s anger be focused on Jason??? lol

Idk I just found it funny (I want to see Jason Grace again)

Calypso managing to shove out some magic yeah girl!!!!

MEG AND APOLLO HUGGING EACH OTHER FOR DEAR LIFE WHILE SOBBING: MY ENTIRE AESTHETIC

Leo meeting Meg was way too fucking funny omfg “so I understand you can like...control him?” and when Apollo tried denying it she makes him slap himself??? 😂

How did we fucking segue from lighthearted banter directly into Apollo having a vivid flashback of the time he had to murder the love of his life with his bare hands

Like I??? Was sobbing??? So hard???? Because a batshit insane Roman empire was getting killed by someone who loved him bc it was necessary for the world and the lover couldn’t stand to see anyone else hurt him??? Fuck me???? Rick Riordan ain’t real

“I couldn’t bare to look into the water without seeing my beloved’s betrayed face starring back” or whatever the fuck the line was but FUCK

Jo was a teenage girl crossdressing to fuck around with gangsters in the 1920′s before Artemis found her and honestly??? Goals

Also the scene where she was helping Apollo after his flashback was very sweet

Can’t believe the nerd spent like six hours playing soothing music just to get a griffin to lay an egg

Leo and Calypso better be whispering amongst themselves what I think they’re whispering

Leo seems a lot more...subdued than usual in this book? I don’t know if that’s just because we aren’t reading from his POV, or if it’s like a “I literally died and came back and then spent six months getting attacked every single day while trying to find home and now I’m stuck on another dangerous quest I’m fucking stressed” type thing, or if it could be from the relationship problems he’s having with Calypso, but either way he seems a little off and I’m worried about him

The Dread Pirate Valdez...leave.

How was that joke never made once on the Argo tho??? lol

The speed at which Leo seems to have emotionally adopted Meg is astounding and also #relatable

Meg’s far from my favorite character tbh but like??? I will probably punch everyone who’s ever frowned in her general direction in the face. Holy shit give this kid a break

She thinks Nero is scared of the mystery third emperor on the West Coast??? So....Caligula, probably? Laying my bets down on him now

“I triggered the First Law of Percy Jackson” I had to put the book down bc I was laughing so hard I think that lines gonna end up on my gravestone or as the afterword in my autobiography omfg

“I’ve always had a phobia of snakes, especially if you included my step-mother Hera. BOOM!” I choked.

I like that half the time Apollo is able to figure out what to do to win because he has a general understanding of science

Like he knew his burst of godly voice power would only help so much, but he also knew if he stood in the right spot and yelled in the right frequency it would reverberate and knock over the bricks and shit??? NICE

How long were these kids wadding through a sewer how do none of them have hypothermia

Leo: *sets himself on fire* “Gather round, children.”

Like first off someone saying ‘gather round children’ is always going to make me laugh for some reason that’s just a fact but human torching it up really added to the effect lmao

Like okay I understand the set up of the room so that no one would look in the canal and see them but like...how the fuck did no one realize they were there that just felt too easy I’m sorry

Chia Girl

When they found the prisoners was horrifying omfg???

The two fucked up boys on a hunger strike???

“...Hunter the Hunter?” “Yeah, I’ve never heard that before.”

Tall, Dark and Jamie.

Apollo babe you’re on a rescue mission with a time crunch please you can check out Jamie later holy shit

Georgie made me wanna cry get her back to her Combat Moms immediately

The entire sequence of Apollo getting the door open: S C I E N C E B I T C H

“Lemme just fill up some syringes with ammonia just in case”

Alright I’ll admit when Meg started insisting she had a feeling they needed to go through the door: I was really worried she was about to double cross him.

Glad I was wrong but tbh that whole arena dress rehearsal bullshit was STRESSFULL

S T R E S S F U L L

First of all: Apollo’s out here constantly complaining about his puny mortal body but manages to fight and climb and run with a heavy ass chair strapped to his back: okay,

Second of all: why did no one warn me about Livia the elephant I was on the verge of tears every time he mentioned her

Third of all: Monsters, ostriches, race cars, basketballs, football, human mercenaries, animals, like...what even the fuck else SO MUCH WAS GOING ON I would’ve died in ten seconds flat???

Fourth of all: let’s just SET THE FUCKING GRAIN SPIRIT ON FIRE WHY THE FUCK NOT. HOW DID MEG EVEN MANAGE TO GET HIM DOWN. HOW DID APOLLO AND LIVIA MANAGE TO CRASH COMMODUS’ CAR TO THAT DEGREE AND HE NOT ONLY SURVIVED BUT THREW THE WRECKAGE AWAY FROM HIM

Fifth of all: THE FUCKING HUNTERS SHOW UP AND CAUSE EVEN M O R E CHAOS. Truly I don’t know how any of the main heroes survived that there was just too much.

The entire time I was reading it I was like “This feels like a giant fight at the climax of the book how the fuck are there more pages left what else is going to happen???” AND IM STILL WONDERING THAT LIKE

Thalia Grace has been returned to me.

Apollo’s strong urge to save Lit??? Okay I guess. It’s nice to see him being compassionate and shit but. I was kinda with Leo on that one lol

“Thalia Grace slid behind me on the elephant, which fulfilled one of the fantasies I’d had about the Hunter, although I never quite imagined it playing out like this” M E

What was his elephant-involved fantasy with Thalia I need a complete play by play lmao

Also the scene where Commodus dropped his composure for a sec and had a full-blown Angry Ex moment (which...he’s definitely entitled to). That was good and also I was highkey worried he might just try to kill my nerd then and there

Also that he’s not just mad that Apollo killed him but like. All their fucking history together. Shit’s intense.

Apollo loves this elephant so much after only like 15 minutes the first thing he’s gonna do when he’s immortal again is bless her or some shit

Also I’m glad they got that awful chainmail off her

The Hunters apparently just have a magical energy drink with mercury in it okay

Honestly??? I’m a little mad Artemis has been ordered not to contact him THE BOY JUST WANTS TO SEE HIS SISTER HOLY SHIT

Aaaaaand that’s about where I left off. Hoping to finish it all together the next time I get a chance. Hoping all the losers are alright. LOVING this book so far. Waiting to see an official reunion between Georgie and her Combat Moms. The Headless Ghost’s cryptic warning has me worried. Until next time...

#trials of apollo #toa #toa spoilers #the dark prophecy #dark prophecy spoilers #molly mumbles

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3inghao · 7 years

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HI CRUSH ANON HERE AND I WANT TO START OFF BY SAYING TO ALL THE PEOPLE THAT FEEL EMOTIONALLY INVESTED IN MY LOVE LIFE I LOVE YALL HAHHAHHA I DIDNT EXPECT FOR ANY OF THIS TO HAPPEN :'))))) at the same time tho i feel like things might have to be put on hold for a while i dont know !!!! ok sorry sorry ill explain so ,, ive figured out that im like really really into this boy. in a way thats probably not the best for me right now, esp bc ive got a lot of things to juggle right now (1/17)

but also bc ive been thinking and like ,, ok so this story might put things more into perspective. so its like monday and i get a text from him thats just like ‘hey what are the rest of your classes for today/do you have like 15 min or something to be in a shoot of mine before it gets dark’ and im like PANICKIN bc ofc hes asked some of us to be models for his photography hw before and its always super casual BUT this is the first time that IVE ever been asked specifically (2/17)

and so obviously i jump at this offer and im like ‘umm i dont have any more classes today so sure just lmk when and what to do :) also whats the shoot about?’ and hes like ‘ok cool we can meet at your room at like 5:15 and ill tell you about the shoot when we meet up :)’ and he wanted us to go to this reaaaaally pretty park at sunset and do the shoot around that time and i was like ‘ok do u want me to wear anything specific’ and he was like ‘nothing in particular :)’ (3/17)

and so i start getting ready and im nervous af bc it meant spending more time alone with him and i felt so unprepared for that LMAO but yeah so he comes up to our room and i open the door and my heart skips a fucking BEAT and i almost slam the door in his face but i force myself not to aha and so we go and hes like ‘ugh im so tired i want coffee lets get coffee’ and so we went into the starbucks around the corner but then i was like yo will we make it to the park in time (4/17)

and hes like ‘o shit yeah’ so we leave without getting coffee rip but yeah we go to the city park and oh my gskldgskd it is so fucking pretty its right before sunset so everything is golden and the sky is rainbow but you can already see the moon and holy one of the prettiest views i think i have EVER seen !!!!! and then he explains to me what the project is finally and hes like so its an experimental photo set thats supposed to represent all the things we left behind in modern society (5/17)

and so for me he said he wanted me to pose in the city park at sunset sitting on a bench with my hands cupped like i was holding a heart (hes going to photoshop the heart in later when hes editing the pics) and then like leave it behind on the bench and look at the sunset behind me which is supposed to represent and i quote “leaving love behind in the pursuit of beauty” and i literally was like 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 the whole time LMAOOOOOOO (6/17)

but yeah so we did that in like 15 min but after we were done i legit didnt want to leave bc (i wanted to spend more time with him but also) IT WAS SO FUCKING PRETTY SKDHJDFH and ahhhh i like looked over at him and he looked sooo at peace just like looking out over the water and the sunset and the scenery was so beautiful i almost blurted out hi i think ur beautiful but i stopped myself in the nick of time thank god LOOOOOL (7/17)

but he like made eye contact with me and i like held myself together but there was a moment where i felt like djdhskjdkd idk how to describe it i was kfskshdhdjdh idk it could be just my imagination but I FELT LIKE THERE WAS SOMETHING THERE AHHHHHHHH and i was so tempted to ask him about the hand holding on saturday but i didnt i held myself back again thank god lol and then all of a sudden he goes ‘hey do u want pics’ and im like wot (8/17)

and hes like ‘do u want some pics of urself? like we r already here so !! plus i want some photos to put on my photography insta’ and i was like sljkddjkd ok why the hell not so he directs me into different poses and stuff like that and after the sun sets we finish and then we r walking back bored af so we start wandering around the little shops nearby and then we finally get home and then our friend texts the group chat like ‘hey anyone want dinner now’ (9/17)

and we were already really close to a dining hall so the two of us went and got dinner and our friend just joined us later and then during dinner when it was just the two of us we started talking about me losing the bet of when our friends were gonna hook up and so i have to treat him to japanese bbq and we were talking about when and hes like ‘well theres nothing im gonna celebrate for a while except my best friend from home is coming bc her sisters getting married here” (10/17)

and i was like ‘omg thats great ??? congrats to her !!!! omg’ but idk this is where it gets kind of confusing bc idk we were talking about maybe going this weekend but his best friend was coming and he was planning on spending all his time with her but i think he said that we could go get japanese bbq with her too ?? and i think i said ok but i dont think we locked down any like specific date and time at all ??? this part is a lil confusing to me (11/17)

so anyways that happened and i havent really interacted with him after that whole thing like we still have a streak on snapchat lol but he will do this thing where he wont open or respond to my snapchats for like literal hours ,,, even though i know hes ON snapchat bc he will like watch my stories ??? like w o t ???? i dont think hes doing it on purpose if that makes sense ?? but its still annoying and borderline infuriating and sldkghsldkgh (12/17)

and also like ok ,, his best friend came like yesterday and i saw her on his snapchat story and h o l y g o d she is the most beautiful girl on all of fucking planet earth i shit u not like i actually !!!! screamed when i saw her shes so fucking gorgeous and on his story theres a bunch of snaps of the wedding etc and a pic of him and her in a photobooth and sldkgsldkghs holy ???? i dont know how to put this into words but they are p e r f e c t for each other (13/17)

like in every way possible they are literally best friends and shes an actual goddess and together they look sooooo aesthetically pleasing it is legitimately intimidating and ahhh sldkgldgkh so the thing is !!!!! i already have practically no self esteem left ,, and a dinner with like HER and THEM will probably d e s t r o y m e from the inside out i will literally just feel inferior in every single way possible and i have NO IDEA HOW TO EXPLAIN THIS UGH !!!!!! (14/17)

but yeah that kinda just made me realize that i might need to take a couple steps back ??? from this entire thing and him in general ,, and also that before anything happens i really want to work on me first like obv x has got his shit together and theres that whole thing with his best friend and idk !!! i like have pledged to go to the gym way more and get my fucked up sleep schedule back to some resemblance of normal and f o c u s on my academics and skincare and eating more healthy !! (15/17)

like i wanna be a person that everyone can look at and be like yes !! u go girl shes got her shit together and yeah !!!! aha :’) and also i need to COOL IT with my feelings about x like as amazing as he is and as fun as it is to spend time with him and as much as i want to pursue everything about this relationship i dont think im in a place mentally and emotionally where i can handle that so !!!!!! for now im gonna (try to) just distance myself a lil (16/17)

and yeah !! if he asks to go out for japanese bbq tonight/tomorrow i think im just gonna be like ‘ahh i wish i could but im super swamped with work rn sorry :(((‘ (which is 100000% true) and just leave it at that *deep sigh* anyways thats where i am at this point thanks for tuning in yall aha :’) i just need to not be hurt in this relationship and distancing myself for now is the only way i know how to prevent that ,, and i probably wont be that successful but !!! heres to trying :) (17/17)

awwwwwwwww crush anon BUT THE SUNSET DATE (yes im calling it a date) does his best friend go to the same college as you guys?? bc if he’s single and she doesn’t live anywhere near him there probably really isn’t anything between them that you need to worry about. I def support the focusing on yourself bc the more confidence you have in yourself the less insecure you will be once you actually get into a relationship so go you!! my gf and i are actually starting to facetime each other and work out together too so all of us can struggle in that tryin to be healthier lyfe! i think in one of the other asks you mention more happened? but i also think that maybe a bbq date with him wouldn’t be bad? and i think you should try to have it with just him and no one else! idk fill me in on any new developments :0

#💫

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